Structural, Optical and Magnetic Properties of (Ni, Al) Co-Doped ZnO Nanoparticles

Abstract

We synthesize pure and (Ni, Al) co-doped Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles by chemical co-precipitation method at room temperature successfully using poly ethylene glycol (PEG) as stabilizing agent. In the preparation, we kept one dopant element aluminum at constant concentration, 5 mol% by varying the other dopant concentration from one to three mol%. Following the completion of synthesis, the nanopowders are cautiously subjected to diverse characterizations such as XRD, SEM with EDS, TEM, PL, UV-Vis-NIR, Raman and VSM to determine the properties to be found the structural, optical and magnetic. XRD data shows that all the nanopowder samples acquire hexagonal wurtzite crystal structure by means of no secondary phases connecting to aluminum or nickel; this indicates the well dissolution of aluminum and nickel in to ZnO host lattice. The exact size of particles is predicted using TEM illustrations, which are more or less confirmed by the XRD data. The morphology of the samples is identified using SEM images, and EDS spectrum reveals that no impurities are present in the powder samples than nickel and aluminum. Optical properties are deliberated via PL spectrum and UV-Vis-NIR spectra, every one of the samples have defect related peaks in the visible region. Magnetic properties are estimated by means of the technique VSM, except pure ZnO nanoparticles remaining all the doped samples contains the Ferro magnetic nature.